Cap Code Fun Police Will Stifle Creativity

We’ve all been talking about the recently published Cap Code and what it means for PR and brands. The bods at PRWeek asked Strings for his thoughts and was only too happy to oblige…

It was simply a matter of time before vlogger guidelines were introduced into the Cap Code, as happened last week.

With the huge growth of YouTubers and bloggers, naturally the commercialisation of those opportunities was always going to be explored (or as some might argue, exploited) by both brands and vloggers.

After all if you could get a few million views, 100k likes and endorsed engagement by paying tens of thousands of pounds. Why wouldn’t you, especially when the alternative could be paying an agency ten times that amount to create content which then usually requires a seeding budget to help get those spurious views, honestly it’s a bit of a no brainer if done correctly.

Roman Atwood’s Pranks have gotten over 1bn Youtube views, compared to Star Wars Youtube channel which only has 177m (I know that doesn’t paint the whole picture, but Atwoods audiences are highly engaged. Zoella, had 5000 people turn up to her book launch at Waterstones in Piccadilly, which is what the likes of Mr Beckham attracts.

The creative purists hate the idea that a bunch of untrained and amateur kids have stolen the limelight. But, with the demand for them, we need to accept that vloggers aren’t going to just close up their cameras and go away. Therefore it’s about time that there was form of both regulation and self regulation, if only to prevent the potential abuse and exploitation of the general public, and to give brands a way to capitalise on a hugely engaged audience set.